EMAIL LESSON 3: Setting Up High Self Esteem

Welcome to your third lesson: Setting Up High Self Esteem.

In this lesson you will:

• Learn how to set up a compelling future for everything you want to

become;
• Learn a technique used by high performance athletes around the world to
boost success – and how you can use it to boost your success on daily
basis; and
• Understand how to change your 'stuck' self-descriptions into practical
solutions.

In this lesson, you will be referring to your Workbook, Section 3.

Introducing WORKBOOK SECTION 3: Setting Up High Self Esteem

Warning: Some aspects of Lesson 3 can seem a little 'new age voo-doo' to some.
Just try them anyhow, you'll find they work!

Before we plunge into the first exercise in this section, 'Designing Your Future' on
Page 27, you'll want to read these background principles ...

Setting Up High Self Esteem

I can't emphasis this enough ...

"Self esteem is not something you have, it is something you do." (You can read
more about this in my article online at: http://www.selfesteemplus.com/self-
esteem-have-or-do.htm)

So setting up continual high self esteem means understanding that there is

always something you are doing in order to become something you want to be.

And the following two sets of premises can seem complex or even difficult to
believe. Sometimes your conscious mind will go nuts with "Yes ... but ... yes ...
but ". Don't worry about this, just "go with the process"!

If necessary, just pretend they are true for now - just as an experiment!

Premise 1

1. You are continually setting up your own future – consciously or not.

2. You are continually 'recreating' your present states (with thoughts,
feelings, physiology).
3. Your present states cause your future.
4. Take control of your present states in respect to setting up your future,
 and you are far more likely to create the future you desire.

Premise 2

5. You are continually leaving your past 'behind'.

6. Take control of how you 'leave things behind you' and you'll accelerate
your desired future by leaving behind the undesirable elements of your
present life.
7. All of the above are ways that you 'code' how you rid yourself of a 'stuck
state' (eg depression, low self esteem etc).
8. Analyze and change your coding where necessary for all the above and
you change your life and set up a more compelling future.

But it will take a bit of work and some analysis to break this down.

We will actually begin in the past with an exercise called 'Designing Your Future'
on Page 27. So let's begin ...

The Future: Leaving the past behind (Workbook Page 27)

First read Page 27 thoroughly.

This is a very powerful process, so take some time to think about it. If necessary,
get the diary out and put some dates and events down (beginning with 5 years
ago).

As you do so, you'll notice your very thought patterns have changed – some
things were left behind you for good (and yes, sometimes we can leave good
things behind too – but not any more).

The point of this part of the exercise is to identify the thoughts and feelings
associated with your own evolution.

This will help your unconscious mind better understand and utilize Part Two,
where you define what you are 'becoming'.

Your unconscious mind understands patterns!

Having recognized that you are engaged in an exercise in moving from the past
into the future, your unconscious mind obliges by providing the correct
'directional coding'. This allows for re-patterning of the way your present states
set up the future without you even having to think about it.

What you are 'becoming'

Let's go all the way out into the future, only this time working backwards from 10
years into the future.

This is to take full advantage of this re-patterning process and to make it

incredibly obvious to your conscious mind, that, by the time you get 'back' to
'who you are becoming tomorrow', it will seem preposterously easy.

Once again, although this is simply a series of written exercises, do not discount
the full effect of this when done with commitment. Be careful what you ask for –
you are going to get it!

Alright. Now you know what you are becoming, it is time to set up your coding for
success in the way that world-class athletes do, using the science of autogenics.

Future pacing (Workbook Page 32 )

Indulge me for a moment.

Imagine you are about to bite into a slice of dripping fresh tangy lemon. Even
better, close your eyes, imagine the slice in your hand, coming up to your mouth
and then .... biting in.

What did you notice with this simple experiment?

Exactly. The unconscious mind has great difficulty determining the difference
between real and imagined events. Whether you like lemons or not, if you
salivated or experienced that 'lemon tang' sensation in your mouth, or some
tightening of the jaw muscles in anticipation, you know what I am talking about.

And most of us have had the sensation of waking from a dream that seemed
absolutely real.

The science of autogenics aims to refine this natural skill to better resource
ourselves in achieving goals. But make no mistake, this is not 'positive thinking'!

This is about taking any future event (or person) that you want to have or be,
then fully imagining that it is happening now.

With all the sensations you can possibly imagine.

Now you have just given your unconscious mind the map of your future, and all it
has to do is to find the route. Better yet, it will do it in the background for you!

Why? Partly perhaps because 'nature abhors a vacuum' and your unconscious
mind has had a full taste of the future you desire, sense that you do not have it
now, and feels intensely compelled to resolve this 'cognitive dissonance' (technical
term to impress your friends).

I have used this technique almost everyday of my life and I swear by it. If I have
a particularly busy day with lots to 'get done' and am feeling stressed about this,
I'll future pace total success. I still might not get everything done, but I sure feel
good about doing it all! And the quality of what you can do takes a quantum leap.

So go to Page 32 and follow the steps. Do it now. Use aspects of the 'future you'
that you just wrote about 'becoming' back on Page 29, if you wish ...

... do it now!

How To Unravel Your Self Esteem (Workbook Page 34)

Now you might be getting to this stage and finding some parts (or all!) of your
'self esteem' seemingly impenetrable. No surprises really, if it was all really clear,
you would know what to do even without this course!

'Gestalt'.

In the workbook I use the term 'gestalt' to describe the aspects of self esteem
that seem to be all tied up in one big 'thing'.

But what is 'gestalt'? It is when we make an artificial 'thing' out of a set of

(sometimes unrelated) parts.

Is the diagram below just a collection of dots, dashes, slashes and plus signs? Or
has it already become a 'picture' with it's own form in your own mind?

+--------+
: :
: /\ /\ +---+ :
: \/ \/ | | :
: +---+ :
+--------+

In the same way, some psychologists believe we make an intangible 'form' out of
a set of discrete and separate behaviors, then give it a name. Such as self esteem
for instance.

And sometimes it is hard to know what to 'do' with this 'thing' – nothing seems to
work.

Well let me ask you, if someone asked you to go out on the streets tomorrow and
find 'the economy', could you? Or if you were asked to 'clean out the
government', where would you take your bucket of water and cloth?

Abstract terms are useful to help us communicate simply, but they do us no

favors when it comes to taking specific action in our own lives.

And if that 'intangible form' gets too vague, it can turn into a seemingly
impenetrable mass ... except that you and I know how to fix that!
Time for you to go to work. This may take you a little while and a little bit of
thinking, but luckily all of your previous work should have given you some
insights already into how to 'denominalize' any gestalts you have.

And once you do, you'll find it incredibly liberating!

Get stuck into 'unraveling your self esteem' by reading from Page 34 and then
following the instructions beginning on Page 35.

And then comes the exciting part ... once you have broken the gestalt down, once
you have denominalized your self esteem, you'll easily find areas you feel
extremely confident you can do something about! It is NOT one big
unchangeable thing!